UCLA researchers' smartphone 'microscope' can detect a single virus, nanoparticles

4:10 September 16, 2013

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his team have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment. The device weighs less than half a pound.

“This cellphone-based imaging platform could be used for specific and sensitive detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments,” Ozcan said. “These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cellphone-based, field-portable imaging system.”

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

In the ACS Nano paper, Ozcan details a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a color filter, an external lens and a laser diode. The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees. This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

Using this device, which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone, Ozcan’s team was able to detect single human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles. HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants, who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened. A single HCMV particle measures about 150–300 nanometers; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers thick.

In a separate experiment, Ozcan’s team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90–100 nanometers.

To verify these results, researchers in Ozcan’s lab used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope. These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cellphone-based imaging device.

Ozcan is the principal investigator on the research. The first author of ACS Nano the paper is Qingshan Wei, a postdoctoral researcher in Ozcan’s lab and at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), where Ozcan is associate director. Other co-authors include Hangfei Qi and Ting-Ting Wu of the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology; Wei Luo, Derek Tseng, Zhe Wan and Zoltan Gorocs of the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department; So Jung Ki of the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Laurent Bentolila of CNSI and the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Ren Sun of the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and CNSI.

For more information on the Ozcan Research Group, visit http://org.ee.ucla.edu/ Ozcan is a founder of the mobile microanalysis startup company Holomic LLC, which seeks to commercialize imaging and sensing technologies licensed from the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research

Funding support for the Ozcan Research Group comes from Nokia University Research Funding, the Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, established in 1945, offers 28 academic and professional degree programs and has an enrollment of more than 5,000 students. The school’s distinguished faculty are leading research to address many of the critical challenges of the 21st century, including renewable energy, clean water, health care, wireless sensing and networking, and cyber-security. Ranked among the top 10 engineering schools at public universities nationwide, the school is home to eight multimillion-dollar interdisciplinary research centers in wireless sensor systems, wireless health, nanoelectronics, nanomedicine, renewable energy, customized computing, the smart grid, and the Internet, all funded by federal and private agencies and individual donors.

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